Friday, February 9, 2018

I've "officially" reviewed at least 80 cameras since I started this blog, and many more that didn't result in articles. Let me just say it now - nothing I've ever reviewed deserves to be compared to the Sony a7R III because it is simply in a class of its own. This is the next generation of how camera sensors should perform, and it has no equal - period.

Now before you declare me a Sony fan boy, let me also point out that my primary DSLR is a Canon 1DX Mark II and my secondary camera is a Fujifilm X-E2. I've also said great things about the Nikon D850 and many other Nikons. I've also had my fair share of reviews for Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and more.

I enjoy review cameras and I've had a fair share of excellent products that I've highly recommended. I've bashed Sony cameras that I thought sucked and faced the wrath of the hate mail from the Sony faithful. However, as 2017 has now come to a close it's crystal clear to me that my hands haven't held a camera with a full frame (or smaller) sensor that has even come close to what I've experienced with this camera. What's more, this is the best a7R series camera that I've tested thanks to improvements to the body and what I "non-scientifically" feel are improvements in its in-camera noise reduction and overall dynamic range.

Why is this camera different?

If you've followed my blog, then you know that I've been harsh on large megapixel cameras for the following reasons:

Noisy - High ISO performance has been poor in a world where lower resolution cameras are killing it at ISO 25,600 and sometimes even higher.

Can't Hand Hold - Extra megapixels meant faster shutter speeds were required to get a sharp handheld shot over other cameras. In fact, some cameras on the market demand as much as 1/<focal length * 3> minimum shutter speeds to cancel out camera shake. This means they are utterly useless for anything but tripod and shoots under studio lighting.

No practical benefits - Initially many of these higher resolution cameras offered a lot more megapixels but nothing that can be perceived as a benefit when you shrinking your photo down and use it on social media, your desktop background or on your TV. Sure there are some printing advantages, but poor sensor performance resulted in them not really being much different than a properly resized photo from a lower resolution camera. Simply put - camera makers were fooling us by just doing in-camera resizing that didn't seem to yield any measurable benefit in real world use.

The Sony a7R III changes all of that. The issues raised above are no longer an issue with this camera and here's 100% unedited in-camera sRGB JPEG's (that are only better with the RAW) that prove this camera is legit.

The color is fantastic and even when you look at the eye at 100% as shown here:

you'll notice that the details are excellent and the noise is on par with best performing lower megapixel DSLR's. That's ISO 8000 folks - previously most high megapixel cameras (except the D850) I tested looked terrible at this ISO and higher. Of course this is in the daylight with everything in best case to high ISO noise, so what about when things get dark?

Here's an example below at ISO 25,600 when you click on it at full-size things get a little ugly, but the in-camera JPEG is still totally usable as you can see here:

Look at all of the detail I can bring back in the background and in the shadows - it's like someone turned the lights on! Of course, I can easily change the white balance to bring back the warm feel of the in-camera version but I didn't do that here just to illustrate a point and emphasize the blues that get recovered in this image.

Now imagine if I had taken this shot at ISO 100?!!!! The biggest problem with high ISO images is that you lose dynamic range, but even at ISO 25,600 this camera has gobs of dynamic range with plenty to spare.

Here's another good example at ISO 10,000 that is 100% unedited and taken during a parade at night (hence the persons head at the bottom of the shot):

While my Canon 1DX Mark II might do a little better with noise at these levels and higher, it can't touch the dynamic range - and that would be true if I was using the 5DsR, 5D Mark IV, or even a Nikon D5. Having this much color retained at high ISO is perhaps more as important as Noiseware can get rid of the noise dots but you can't bring color back. As a result, I can easily say this is a camera where you shouldn't fear cranking up the ISO.

Can you hand hold? - Oh heck yeah!

Guess what, unless otherwise noted, almost every shot in this article is hand held?!! Take note of that when looking at the shutter speeds. However, I should note that when you see 1/200 sec that's because I forced a minimum shutter speed in the camera to avoid camera shake - before I realized how much I could trust this camera!

That's crazy sharp!!! Of course, this lens has Optical Steadyshot in addition built-in SteadyShot that applies to all lenses so you end up being able to pull off human tripod shots that even shaky hand people like me with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome could normally never get without some serious support.

To prove this isn't smoke and mirrors, I had my 8 year old son take this iPhone photo of me while I was taking the shot above:

Here's another shot taken in the woods while standing up with much less support at 1/100 sec for a 90mm lens:

Now 1/100 sec is about what you should be shooting at for a 90mm lens, so I think this shot proves there's no penalty for the extra megapixels when paired to a OSS lens. Unfortunately I only had one lens for this review so I couldn't test OSS alone, but if you read my a7R II review then you'll see that I thought in camera steadyshot performed well. I don't expect that you'll pay the penalty of needing faster shutter speeds with this camera like you do a Nikon D850. Here's a 100% zoom of the eye from the above shot to show it's plenty sharp for a hand-held shot:

With this camera, I can no longer make the statement that the extra megapixels means it's really best for only studio shots and tripod shooting as I definitely proved it wasn't the case. This is a big deal for cameras with this many megapixels so I commend Sony for doing a great job here!

Plenty of Practical Benefits

Normally when you get a camera in this category you sacrifice a lot so it becomes a specialized camera. However, the a7R III offers an astonishing 399-point AF system with 10 fps that makes it half as fast as the incredible Sony a9 that I reviewed. This means you can get edge to edge AF points and incredible action shooting performance in the worst of conditions. To illustrate this, consider some of these shots taken during a parade at night where I'm being bumped and dealing with a large crowd of people around me:

f/2.8 @ 90mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 4000I honestly don't even remember this person as it was another case where eye AF and burst mode were my spray and pray solution. I was pleased with how well it did even with all of the distractions

f/2.8 @ 90mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 10000Another spray and pray and this one is even more impressive when you consider how dark her eyes are with the visor on - this is a legit photojournalism camera folks!

Ignore the first shot, but the other 14 were tall taken in one burst at RAW+JPEG X.Fine using Eye AF

So yeah, I found this camera to be just as usable in everyday life as my Canon 1D X Mark II yet it had the advantage of the Eye AF feature. So in my books this is a great event, action, wedding, and kids photography camera - that's saying a lot!

He's been amazed at the performance of this camera in extremely low light fast action shots he takes of the prestigious Ellison Ballet. He's been posting picture after picture of amazing shots like this one on Instagram and Facebook:

He feels strongly that the a7R III is definitely an improvement over the II in terms of dynamic range and he considers it to be one of the best cameras he's ever used which is saying quite a lot from a guy who has done quite a few shots with the 100 megapixel Phase One camera system and Broncolor lights!

I could have got much closer and filled the frame with the main subject (I don't know what that food is called either - ha ha). However, I love the shallow depth of field I got from the f/2.8 lens yet my subject is super sharp.

Here's one of the few stabilized shots I took where I was trying to see how well it did at f/22:

Here's a portrait shot out in the snow which surprised me for how blue it was despite using the auto white balance with the warmer ambient setting. Sony seems to favor cooler temps in the snow in its auto white balance algorithm, but that's easy to fix with the RAW:

Like snow, rushing water is always tough to shoot because it's easy to blow out your highlights. Since I was handheld for the shot below I couldn't do a long exposure so I went for capturing the power of the water:

f/8 @ 90mm for 1/160 sec at ISO 640This is a fun shot to explore for all of the detail in the water droplets and rock textures!I can't wait to edit this one as the RAW file gives me so much I can do to make this shot be exactly what I want it to be thanks to the incredible dynamic range of the a7R III

See more than 110 unedited sample photos at http://photos.ronmartblog.com/sony/a7riii. All photos here and in the gallery are copyright Ron Martinsen - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (or Douglas Dubler where noted). You may view the photos while your browser is open to this article, but you must delete all copies from your machine when you leave the article.

You may not print, edit, link to, repost, or otherwise use any images from this article without consent from Ron Martinsen (or Douglas Dubler where applicable). Contact me for more details.

Conclusion

I wish I had more lenses for this review, as being limited to the 90mm really hindered what I could do.

I wish I had more time with this camera as I have a lot of ideas of what I could do to show it off.

I wish you'd buy my Canon gear so I could buy this camera - it really is that good. This is why I'm proud to give the Sony a7R III my highest recommendation by naming it my 2017 Camera of the Year!

While Sony still has plenty of gaps in terms of lenses offered for this camera and its flash system is nothing compared to the Canon 600EX II-RT or Nikon SB-5000, there's enough goodness with the Sony a7R III that I'm officially recommending those that can afford it to switch camps. That isn't something I do lightly or have ever done before, but in the world of amazing cell phones like the iPhone X and the Samsung S8 the advantage of big bulky DSLR's is fading fast. As a result, your camera should do more and only the Sony a9 and a7R III are legitimately doing that in my opinion.

While I haven't owned a Sony camera since 2006, that is very likely to change in 2018 when I've sold enough gear to make the switch. When I do, you can bet that the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS lens will be high on my wish list. I'd also love to see Sony work on these things in 2018 to make this platform better:

Please make E-Mount versions of your best lenses and move third parties like Sigma to do the same.

Please build a killer radio frequency ETTL flash system.

Continue to make improvements on the painful menu system such that it has fewer pages. I like Canon's system best - especially with the Q button jump feature.

Make it easier to one tap (rather than hold) to engage and disengage Eye AF.

Learn from Fujifilm and offer a left vs right eye option for Eye AF.

Continue to improve the high ISO performance and metering.

Make it cheaper so more people can enjoy the best camera on the market! :)

5 comments:

I jumped from Canon to Sony more than 2 years ago and my bet on Sony has paid off. Sony’s rate of improvement and system development has been spectacular. I think there will be more to come. I’m really liking my A9.

Good question. For parents, I think the Sony a9 would actually be a better choice. The a7R III Mark is a great camera, no doubt, but kid photography is effectively sports photography so your odds are great with a real sports camera.